094 
cently. and no one is more in favor of it than I, yet 
I believe many have a wrong impression of what an 
honest pack really is, and to my mind some people 
are trying to walk so straight in this respect that they 
are bending badly over backward, some, for instance, 
being so afraid they are going to deceive some one 
that they insist on making their good fruit look com¬ 
mon. This, to my mind, is a bad mistake. No one 
was ever taken in by buying a good barrel or box of 
fruit simply because it was made attractive, and my 
firm belief is that we should put nothing but fancy 
fruit in a fancy package, but that when you hare 
fancy fruit make it just as attractive as you possibly 
can, and I will risk the kicks and relish the advance 
in price. wm. hotaling. 
Columbia Co., N. Y. 
POTATOES OR CABBAGE WITH DAIRY. 
Do you think it wise when one is dairying with about 
20 cows to take up potato raising, or cabbage or the like, 
on fairly hard land, about 12 miles to Schenectady or 
Saratoga, or to ship on car to New York? Milk is selling 
at about $1.25 net in Summer and $1.70 net in Winter. 
We expect more next year, as peddlers raised price after 
they bought milk this year. Our farm consists of 144 
acres, about 100 acres tillable, rest pasture and woodland. 
w. s. c. 
It will depend on various things, such as markets, 
soil and the ability to handle some special crop. As 
a rule it pays to have something to sell besides milk. 
By following a rotation on level land and using some 
fertilizer in addition to the manure, you can increase 
all farm crops and have as much or more stock feed 
and still some crop to sell direct. In central New 
York many dairymen find cabbage a good partner 
for the cows. It can be manured heavily and prob¬ 
ably gives as large returns for the manure as any 
other farm crop. In the section mentioned cabbage 
is largely grown, and there are good markets and 
many buyers. In a section where cabbage is not 
generally grown there might be more difficulty in 
disposing of it. You should make very sure of your 
market before planting cabbage largely. Potatoes go 
well with dairying when a fair rotation is followed. 
Usually in such practice they follow corn. The ma¬ 
nure is put on the sod and this is plowed for corn. 
Then the next year potatoes are planted, using a 
fair amount of fertilizer. The soil after the corn 
crop is usually in fine condition for potatoes, being- 
mellow and open, since the manure and the old sod 
have been decayed and broken up. This plan of using 
all the manure for corn (on the sod) and using fertil¬ 
izers on potatoes has proved very successful on many 
farms. By seeding to grass alone or to rye or wheat 
and grass after potatoes you have a short rotation 
which furnishes grass and corn for stock feed and 
a money crop in potatoes. Or you can make a longer 
rotation to include oats. In order to work such a 
plan right your soil must be level and uniform with 
the cultivated fields close together. In some cases 
the potatoes are grown only on special fields, with a 
short special rotation designed to keep the soil filled 
with humus. The plan involves some outlay for po¬ 
tato machinery—planter, sprayer and digger. So far 
as one can see now the outlook is for a continuance 
of fair average prices for potatoes. 
MULCHING FOR A PROXY FRUIT GROWER. 
I have an orchard of 450 trees, permanent trees 40 
feet apart. I have used Wealthy as a filler, making 
the trees 20 feet apart. I began setting out trees nine 
years ago, have set some each year. The land was planted 
with corn for two or three years, then seeded to grass. 
Two years ago I plowed In a crop of clover, sowed rye 
in Fall, plowed rye in - the next .Tune, and sowed buck¬ 
wheat. It was so dry it did not amount to enough to 
plow iu. I plowed the land in .Tune this year and sowed 
buckwheat. I am plowing that iu. I work iu a shop; 
have to hire work done. This way is quite expensive, 
to say nothing about having your trees barked. Your 
mulch idea seems to me, the way I am situated, a pretty 
good thing. The soil is a deep sandy loam; trees are 
doing well. What would you seed with, how much per 
acre? Would you seed with rye? In putting mulch 
around the tree, do you put it close to butt of tree, and 
how much space do you cover? Before you put the mulch 
around trees do you loosen the soil? Would you cut 
second crop? , G. s. r. 
Marlboro, Mass. 
We would not advise the mulch system except on 
natural grass land—strong and moist—or where you 
can use the equivalent of a good-sized haystack 
around each tree. Do not attempt it under other con¬ 
ditions. A modification of it can be adopted in cases 
where, as with this man, the owner cannot do all 
the work. We have had serious trouble ‘with barking 
trees in plowing or cultivating. Such trees are often 
ruined unless they are attended to at once. To pre¬ 
vent this we adopt the plan of leaving a strip of sod 
six feet or more wide along the row of trees. Thus 
no cultivating tool can reach the tree. The grass 
along this strip is cut with a scythe and piled around 
the trees. The middles may be plowed and seeded 
to rye, or rye and vetch in the Fall. This growth is 
THE RURAL, NEW "YORKER 
cut in late May or early June and piled around the 
trees. The rye stubble can be worked up with the 
disk or cutaway and seeded to buckwheat and tur¬ 
nips. We would rather plow this growth under in 
early September and seed to rye again. In this way 
you have one heavy crop, rye, to use as mulch, and 
another, buckwheat, to plow into the ground. You 
may leave the strip along the tree rows 10 feet wide 
if desired. This makes less plowing, yet the middles 
will give sufficient mulch. You can, of course, leave 
out the buckwheat. In that case a growth of weeds 
will come and may be plowed under, but the buck¬ 
wheat will pay in the end, for you are fitting the 
ground for a permanent grass seeding. We like to 
work over the soil before putting on the mulch— 
which is thrown close to the tree and three to four 
feet out. As the tree grows larger this mulch should 
be spread out as far as the branches extend. As Win¬ 
ter comes on this mulch must be moved back so as 
to leave a bare space around the base of the tree. If 
this is not done the mice will make trouble by gnaw¬ 
ing the tree. With such soil as you describe we 
would not advise you to depend on a grass mulch en¬ 
tirely until the trees have made a good growth or are 
in bearing. Working the middles gives partial culti¬ 
vation, the rye gives good mulch, and the buckwheat 
will fill the soil with humus. When you finally seed 
down you will find the soil far better fitted for per¬ 
manent grass than it is now. Do not take anything 
out of this orchard except apples and tree trimmings, 
but pile all you can get around the trees. You can, 
of course seed to grass this year as a permanent 
mulch, but our advice would be to use the rye and 
buckwheat a few years more, until the trees are well 
started at bearing. 
ROUGH AND READY APPLE CULTURE. 
I have a farm that for 60 years or more was used for 
general dairying purposes: for the past 15 years it has 
been almost uncultivated. The soil is a rich, heavy loam 
of glacial drift. The elevation is 1,200 feet. There is an 
old orchard and many scattering apple trees all about 
the pastures that look vigorous and bear fairly well. I 
trimmed the old orchard thoroughly three years ago. 
using commercial fertilizer and nitrate of soda about 
the trees. It is well loaded with very good fruit this 
year. Relying upon what these trees are doing with 
little attention, I am convinced that the land is well 
adapted for fruit. I have out some 800 trees, some of 
which have been set three years. I am intending to set 
all of the old meadows to apples. I run it as a side line. 
I am keeping no stock, not even a horse. The hay 
is good on new seeding, but of little value, as I do not 
care to harvest it myself, and am not able to sell it to 
near-by farmers standing for anything like what it is 
worth. I think I am well situated for the mulch method. 
All the experiment stations advise clean culture and 
cover crop method. Now, under the conditions stated 
and from your observations and experience, which method 
would you follow? Do you advise the filler system of 
setting? What distances would be advisable for such 
soil as mine? Will you name your choice of two varieties 
for the permanent trees, and your choice of two varieties 
for the fillers? I can get a good Timothy and clover sod. 
Would you try Alfalfa either alone or with clover for 
an orchard sod? Although I have not tried it. I am 
quite certain I can get a stand of Alfalfa. a. m. h. 
Corinth. N. Y. 
Here is the case of a man with another business 
who must care for his orchard by proxy. This means 
that the trees must come as near as possible to tak¬ 
ing care of themselves. They must be sprayed and 
pruned, but when it comes to culture hired labor will 
eat up more than the apples bring in, unless you can 
be right there to run the'business. We take this to 
be natural grass land, and we should in this case fol¬ 
low the mulch system. Cut the grass twice during 
the season. Rake it and throw under the trees. It 
is true that most of the scientists decry this mulch 
method. They do not, however, have to pay the 
cultivating bills on a fruit farm run by hired labor. 
Send for bulletins describing this mulch system issued 
by the Ohio Experiment Station at Wooster and the 
Pennsylvania Station at State College. We think it 
may fairly be stated that, on ordinary land, cultivation 
will give more and larger apples, while fruit on the 
mulched land will be smaller, firmer and higher col¬ 
ored. For a man situated like A. M. H. this mulch 
system is a reasonable proposition provided he keeps 
the trees healthy, properly pruned and sprayed and 
will leave all the hay in the orchard. 
We believe in the “filler'’ system and plant 20 feet 
apart so as to cut out the fillers later and leave the 
standards 40 feet each way. We have stopped trying 
to give definite advice about distance and varieties 
without knowing all about the soil. We use Wealthy 
for fillers and now plant McIntosh largely for 
standard, but success with any variety depends 
largely upon the soil. Baldwin, for example, does 
best on a lighter sandy loam well drained. Greening 
or Northern Spy demands a much heavier soil for 
its best development. These things must be consid¬ 
ered in deciding varieties. You should go to local 
growers for this information. As to Alfalfa, we 
September 28, 
would not use it in a young orchard. It is such a 
thirsty plant that it will rob the young trees of mois¬ 
ture. After the tree comes into bearing Alfalfa 
makes a good mulching crop. We have seen it in 
orchards 15 or more years old where the first crop 
was taken out as hay and two crops left. It was 
found that where all crops were left on the ground 
the trees made too much growth. 
DO SPIDERS BITE HARD ? 
What can the entomologists tell us about those huge 
striped black and yellow spiders which are unusually 
frequent this Summer in the garden? I know spiders are 
not insects, hence are not described in books on economic 
entomology. I understand these tiger spiders are ex¬ 
tremely poisonous, a relative suffering seriously from a 
spider bite. Within a week we have killed 22 of these 
creatures in our garden ; one was devouring a huge katydid 
when destroyed. S. J. 
It is a common belief that spiders are venomous 
creatures, always biting people who come near them, 
and inflicting grievous wounds charged with poison. 
The truth is that spider bites followed by pain, sick¬ 
ness, and death are frequent only in the newspapers. 
It is certain that there are no spiders in the northern 
United States that are to be feared by man. There 
is one species, the hour-glass spider, found in the 
Southern States, that is said to be poisonous to man. 
The author has collected insects for years over the 
territory where this spider is prevalent and has again 
and again turned over sticks and logs harboring hour¬ 
glass spiders, but has never been bitten by one, nor 
has one of them ever shown the slightest inclination 
to bite, nor has he ever heard of anyone being bitten 
by this spider. Even the large tarantulas that occur 
in the Southwest are yet to furnish us with an au¬ 
thentic, well-attested bite that has caused serious pain 
or trouble to any person. In general, spiders are 
timid creatures, always shunning man and hiding 
away in their retreats the moment he appears on the 
scene. It is true that spiders do have a venom that 
is sufficiently strong to kill insects; but the amount 
of poison necessary to stun or paralyze an insect 
would probably have little effect upon so large a body 
as that of a human being. To sum up then, not a 
common spider of the northern United States need 
be feared by anyone, and only a single species occurs 
in the Southern States that may possibly be dangerous 
in rare instances. 
Willy, then, do we hear so often of spider bites? 
In the first place, because many people when bitten 
by an insect immediately ascribe it to a spider. As a 
matter of fact, the “bite” of a “kissing-bug,” the sting 
of a bee or wasp, the probing of a flea, or the punc¬ 
ture of a water-bug, may cause serious discomfort 
and pain to many persons. Unquestionably many 
“spider bites" are really the stings or punctures of 
insects. If a real spider bite is followed by serious 
consequences it is either due to the condition of the 
blood of the individual bitten or, more likely, to after 
infection. The bite may cause slight irritation, and to 
allay it the patient scratches it, thus breaking the 
skin and inoculating the wound with poisonous bac¬ 
teria from the outside that cause serious blood poi¬ 
soning. Again, the foolish fear of spiders that seems 
to be largely an inheritance from the days of super¬ 
stition and ignorance, leads us to lay the blame on 
these creatures if we receive a sting or bite that we 
cannot otherwise explain. 
The so-called tiger-spider referred to in the fore¬ 
going letter is a perfectly harmless species and a 
most interesting one. The female frequently meas¬ 
ures an inch or more in length. The web is a beau¬ 
tiful orb-web, 'wonderful in regularity and marvelous 
in construction. We wish we had space to tell just 
how this web is made and to describe the wonderful 
things about it. The center of it is usually strength¬ 
ened with a wide zigzag band of strong silk. During 
the late Summer and Autumn this spider catches 
many grasshoppers for food. It is astonishing how 
quickly the spider will seize a grasshopper and deftly 
wind it in a sheet of silk to prevent its escape. In 
the Autumn the female makes a pear-shaped egg-sac as 
large as a hickorynut which she suspends in the top 
of a weed or among the branches of a shrub. Here 
the eggs hatch and the young spiders remain within 
the sac during the Winter. For food the) - live upon 
one another, the stronger finally surviving. It is lit¬ 
erally a “survival of the fittest." 
GLENN W. HERRICK. 
R. N.-Y.—In spite of all this, we know of a case 
where a woman was bitten by one of these spiders. 
Swelling and fever followed the bite immediately, and 
doctor’s treatment for a week was required. She 
will hardly agree with the high character given these 
insects. 
Owing to the wet season in Great Britain, which has 
greatly injured the hay crop, the Board of Agriculture 
and Fisheries in London is sending out a special leaflet 
on silage making, designed to call farmers’ attention to 
the value of this food. 
